This is basically an all-in-one repository for techie developer-related things I've experienced / come-across and from where I can easily look-up later.
From small useful tidbits, code / key shortcuts, tips, to articles /guides on how to do certain complicated tasks, all the way to full mini-programs for daily use.
If it helps anyone else out too great!

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Finally got myself an entry level Android phone yesterday - the Motorola Quench XT3 XT502. So here's a series of quick reviews on it from an Owners point of view.

It's still not available for display in most shops but I was able to check it out the Tata Croma store at Vashi Centre Mall. They received their first HTC Quench XT3 just that morning but they agreed to let me switch it on and have a look even though it was in a brand new sealed-pack.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that unlike what is advertised on Motorola's own site, this phone came pre-installed with Android 2.1 instead of 1.6! I decided to get it right away for Rs 13691 (this includes the additional Rs700 I paid to Croma to get 2 additional years of warranty).Also, I was able to bargain for a free 2GB Memory card.

Whats in the box?It came with charger, battery, earphones. That's it.It does not have any memory card or even data cable. Its very strange that it did not come with memory card as most of the android features including camera need SD card! But as mentioned before, after insisting on a memory card, the Croma store people gave a Sandisk 2GB microSD free.What's worse is that the lack of data cable means it will be very frustrating for those with expensive GPRS plans and no wifi - they cannot share the internet connection being used on their PC.The phone has only default android apps with not even a single game. The good news there are EXCELLENT free apps available. Will cover this in a later article.

Comparison with other competing phonesWhen I was shopping, the only real phones I could compare in this range wereSamsung Galaxy I5801 (also known as )Song Ericsson Xperia X8WildfireLG Optimus One seems to be taking forever to reach any shops here, so I couldn't consider it.

The screen size is important because most of 1000s of coolest (mostly free) Android apps out there work on the HVGA dimension of 320 x 480 pixels. There is a chance that if your Android phone has a different dimension, apps may run incorrectly if not at all. So this was my biggest priority.Out of the available phones, no other phone provides HVGA and with 2.2 inch at this price range:I5801: Only WQVGA although it has 2.2inch size.Xperia X8: It has HVGA but with very small 2 inch size.

First time Android userSince I haven't used Android before, I decided to follow the manual exactly:Open the cover and remove battery (not really necessary to remove battery for inserting sim and memory, but I just wanted to follow the instructions!).Insert Sim and my 8GB Memory card from my Samsung star phone (which died last week after a water attack!)Replace battery.Charge for 3 hours!

Finally switched on the phone at 12am. First thing I did was a factory reset.

WARNING: Factory Reset will clear all the data on the phone like Contacts, Call logs, installed applications and their data, etc.But don't worry if you are doing this on a new phone - factory Reset does not affect any of your data on the memory card nor the data on the Sim.

Performing a Factory Reset makes sure that I got a fresh Android OS with no overheads.For Factory Reset, go to

After doing the Factory Reset, the phone restarts. After a few minutes, it displays the Welcome message with a Tour which you can skip. Then, it prompts you to enter your Google account details or create a Google account. But I skipped this step as it needs net connectivity and my GPRS plan is very expensive. This step will be prompted when you click on any of the Google apps on the phone like GMail, Lattitude, etc.

Pre-installed AppsThe Gallery app is where all your media is displayed. When I opened this app for the first time, it showed as busy with a message "Loading". I guess it was finding all the 3Gb of pics and videos on my old Memory Card. I switched to another app and when I came after 2 mins, it allowed me to view whatever media was loaded while it continued finding more.But it was REALLY SMOOTH after that! The images are beautifully stacked in the folders. And when clicking on the images loaded them instantly -scrolling to the next pics was just as smooth with instant loading. It think it buffers the next few pics because when I started scrolling through the pics in full screen very fast, my 3MP resolution pics was pixellated and it takes another 1 second for the image to become fully clear.

Anyway, the good part is that it is extremley smooth and fast after that first search. I was interesting that it found each and every single image in my memory card from all scattered locations.

Maybe it's because I have never owned a multi-touch phone before - but I was downright AMAZED by the pinch and unpinch to Zoom and unzoom pics. I mean not only is it very intuituve but it was SUPER FAST and SMOOTH!!!

Another thing is that it showed as busy for about 2 minutes while loading the 2GB pics/videos in my old 8GB Memory Card data before it allowed to start looking at to load all the 3GB of pics n videos in the memory card.

The usual Address Book feature is provided via the Contacts app. However, none of the Phone numbers in the Sim are available automatically in the Contacts . Thankfully, there is an option to Import the phone numbers from your Sim - you can select Import All or just choose the numbers you want to import. To import all the 100 odd contacts in my sim, it took about 3 minutes. Like with the one-time slow processes, I simply switched to another task as the Android can Multitask unlike the iPhone you know :)!

BatteryBattery lasts for 1 day with average gaming and calls with no wifi/bluetooth. This was disappointing for me coming from my Samsung Star S5233A which could last me 2 days easily and sometimes even 4. But then this was expected because Android of course supports multi tasking. So you can have your music player runnng, taking cam pics, use your browser, and create a document without closing any of the apps. But since these apps have no close option, they would continue to run in the background for a while before being closed costing precious processor cycles which in turn means more battery usage.To resolve this, there is an app called Advanced Task Killer - this shows all running apps and u can kill the apps from here too. Also, there is a 1 click shortcut which remembers the apps u selected and killed earlier and automatically kills them! So what I do is just click on this shortcut when I am done using the phone. I was able to get 1.5 to 2 days of battery life once I started doing this.